A few weeks ago, I noticed a drastic change in Google's video index that's something many people have been asking for and has some pretty interesting ramifications. I didn't post about it right away as I wanted to make sure that what I was seeing was something that would stick. So, 2 weeks later, and after some testing, I can now confirm that - YouTube embeds are getting indexed for sites/domains that embed them.

What??? Yes, and it doesn't even matter if you're the owner of the YouTube video or not. Further more, you DON'T even need a video sitemap for YouTube. Hang in there with me as this will likely be a long post given my passion on the subject.

Disclaimer: There are a few oddities in how this seems to be working (as you'll read below). I did reach out to Google about this when I saw it a few weeks ago and have not received a response. It's entirely possible that this is a bug, but if it is, it's one that's been running solid for at least 2 weeks now.

Background: YouTube Embeds, Sitemaps, Google Indexing

So, on the 27th of March, I was doing some of my normal SERP monitoring and noticed that the number of indexed video results for www.ReelSEO.com increased by roughly 300%. When I took a closer look at what pages were getting indexed and what videos were on those pages, all were from posts that we published which contained embedded YouTube videos.

Video Sitemaps for YouTube = CONFUSION:

This change is of great interest to me as I've had numerous people ask me how to create video sitemaps for embedded YouTube videos and there has been a huge amount of discussion online as to how to get videos from YouTube indexed for one's own domain. Check out the comments on this post as an example.

However, until now, it was impossible to get indexed in Google Videos with YouTube embeds on your site, even with a properly formed sitemap (trust me, I conducted testing with almost every publishing method and variant you can think of.) There were a few work-arounds, but these were not well known and would probably be considered a bit of a hack. The reason for this was that Google/YouTube was "ignoring" any sitemap entries that pointed to YouTube.com assets and not allowing sites to get indexed through a YouTube embed.

Google and YouTube never stated this anywhere in there documentation (in fact, their documentation initially caused more confusion by showing an example sitemap code using YouTube). Because of this, people were wasting time trying to build sitemaps for YouTube and troubleshooting why they were not getting indexed. I saw this confusion first hand through multiple emails asking me for consultation help. Unfortunately, for each inquiry, the answer was similar - "sorry, you're wasting your time with that because..."

In fact, there was so much confusion that even some developers built plugins for wordpress that would automatically build video sitemaps for embedded YouTube videos (BTW - good effort though and I really like the developer). Problem is, they did nothing other than create a valid video sitemap. The sitemap entries would never end up getting indexed as videos.

Because I've been close to the subject for some time, there was a lengthy comment discussion on the article that speaks to the fact that such instructions at the time were adding to the confusion, as Google was not indexing YouTube videos for sites that embedded them. The author was very involved and helpful in the discussion but the initial article was just evidence of the confusion. At least he wrote about it and spawned the discussion... I've been meaning to write about this for some time.

Why Might Google Block YouTube Embeds from Being Indexed?

When I originally confirmed that YouTube embeds could not get indexed for sites other than www.youtube.com, it occurred to me that there may be a few reasons why Google and/or YouTube could have decided not to allow it.

1) Spam & Duplicate Content:

There's already an issue with regard to duplicate video content both in YouTube itself, as well as within Google. For example, if you upload the same video to 20 sites, you'll see several of them get indexed with the same title, descriptions, etc... In YouTube, we've all seen the tons of duplicate videos that exist.

Can you imagine if now all those YouTube videos could be indexed on every site that embedded them? You'd have even more people creating content farms with videos embedded from YouTube just as an SEO play. It would be an issue with any video embed, not just YouTube embeds. If this was a reason, it would be hypocritical in that other embedded videos were not ignored.

Regardless, it's no longer a potential issue, it's a reality.

However, Google is pretty good about ranking URLs and being that personalized & social search are taking over, duplicate content is becoming less and less of an issue in the end.

2) Money Money... $$

It used to be that embedded videos did not always have ad functionality. Additionally, it used to be that YouTube was primarily monetizing via the YouTube watch page, with display ads representing a large porition of revenues for YouTube. Therefore it would make perfect sense that they'd want to drive all traffic back to YouTube.com in order to monetize page traffic.

However, as we've all seen, YouTube has been doing a much better job in monetizing embedded YouTube videos and I imagine that if this change was intentional (vs. a bug), it would have been made in part, because they now are more able to monetize traffic that goes to sites with YouTube embeds and are less concerned with mere page views.

Testing Results: YouTube Embeds Get Indexed

As I mentioned, after discovering this, I immediately went into testing mode. I tested several versions fo the YouTube embed code, including but not limited to:

I tested all of these with and without a sitemap and found some very interesting results.

Here's what I found.

YouTube Video Sitemap NOT Required

First off, it was a bit of a surprise to me that they were doing this without any additional data other than what can happen through crawling. Additionally, because I had both a sitemap and schema markup on ReelSEO.com, I wasn't sure if either helped contribute to the jump in indexed results that we saw. So, I tested each of these with and without a sitemap and guess what? It didn't matter whatsoever if there was a video sitemap entry or not.

Indexing Can Happen Reel Fast

This is something that likely will depend on the domain you're using and how often it's crawled, etc... We did have a general XML sitemap (non-video) to tell Google when a new page was published and this may be partially why it happened so fast. Here you can see a screenshot that shows a video indexed in less than a minute after having published it to a relatively new domain.

Surprisingly, Schema VideoObject Markup Didn't Help

As I mentioned, when I first saw this happening, I thought perhaps it was a result of the schema.org markup that I have on all my videos. So, one of the tests that I did included an example whereby I used a straight iframe embed from YouTube (which works on it's own) along with schema.org markup to include additional information about the video. (You can read more about schema markup for videos here.)

Here's the odd thing. The video did get indexed in Google Videos. However, it's missing the thumbnail so if anything, adding schema hurt the result here as we even provide them directly with a thumbnail URL which wasn't used. WTF?

Video Thumbnails will Match YouTube's

As for the other results, it appears that they're using the same thumbnails that are the default chosen thumbnails from the YouTube video itself. Here's an example of a post from earlier today that's already indexed in Google videos.

Greg's post on 101 YouTube channels for Google had 8 videos embedded in it. It appears that Google indexed this page for the last video that was embedded, and used the thumbnail that was originally chosen by the video owner for YouTube.

I haven't tested this yet--but it would be interesting to see if submitting a sitemap entry for this URL, with a different thumbnail specified, would override this default.

Any YouTube Embed Works, Not Just Yours

As you've probably noticed by now, this happens for any YouTube video you embed on your site - IE - it doesn't have to be a YouTube video that you own. I mention this because folks from Google mentioned to me (as well as publicly in our webinar about video sitemaps) that they were thinking of enabling the ability to index YouTube videos only for those videos that are embedded on the YouTube account owner's website properties. This would likely require some sort of integration into webmaster tools but if they have your email address tied to YouTube and Webmaster Tools, it should be easy enough to authenticate ownership. All that being said, it appears they've perhaps relinquished that option so as to allow it for all.

Only the iframe Method?

Just as with schema markup, I was surprised to see the result when trying the older, more established embed code that YouTube provides (<object><embed></embed></object>). I was surprised to see NO results from the ordinary YouTube embed code. The only videos that were indexed were those that were using the iframe embed method with "youtube.com/embed/VIDEOID" as the source.

Why? Well, I suspect that it is less related to the fact that it's an iframe and perhaps more related to the idea that they seem to be looking specifically for the embedded iframe source URL. It could also be (though probably not likely), that they have detected it on YouTube's end and they're matching that up with Google's index. Who knows? Oh wait, Google.

Step 4) That's it. The next time your page is crawled, you'll likely see that it's indexed in Google videos, which makes it eligible to show in Universal Search with a thumbnail when Google considers video results to be relevant to the users' search.

If you want to check to see whether a page has been indexed or not, all you have to do is to go to Google Videos (http://www.google.com/videohp) and search with the following:

Site:www.YourSite.com/YourPage_URL/

Here's an example if you want to see all the videos that we have indexed at ReelSEO.com, you would search for "site:www.reelseo.com."

Now, when you're done with this article, and you've liked, plus'd, tweeted it (look how much work I put into this...hehe), go check your own site. If you have any YouTube videos embedded, they're likely already indexed.

GooTube SEO for Your Site, Potential Ramifications & What's Next

Please note the word "Potential." Again, because it's only been a few weeks and because there are enough oddities (like this only working for iframes, not working with schema, etc...), and because Google has not confirmed or announced any changes with regard to this, I'm not quite ready to say 100% that this is a change that's going to stick. Clearly, no one but Google can make that claim. So, dont get mad at me if this stops working tomorrow.

As for the ramifications, there are potentially many. One just off the top of my head is with regard to some video hosting platforms and services out there. Many of them utilize the previous notion that one can't get indexed for YouTube embeds as a selling point to for custom video player solutions. If anyone can embed any YouTube video on their site and now get indexed as a video result, this USP (unique selling proposition) fails.

Even worse for those companies is the fact that it is now easier to get indexed using YouTube than most video platforms whereby you'd still be required to generate and publish a video sitemap for Google to pick up on the fact that you have videos embedded. Thankfully, there are enough other USPs for video platforms that they won't be too affected.

I certainly have other reservations (like the fact that some embeds may not be the focus of a page and may dissapoint searchers who have come to expect a video landing page when clicking on a video search result in Google) but this post is already long enough and my grammar is becoming a mess so....

It will certainly be interesting to see how this all pans out. I'll promise you all this... if it stops working, I'll write a post with one of the work-arounds that I know will work.

What do you think?

Are you excited by this development?

Are you seeing anything different than what I've found?

What other implications can you think of positive or negative?

Are you more inclined to use YouTube on your website now?

Comment below and let us know.

Proof? Example Embed - Video Sitemaps Webinar

Back in 2010, we did a webinar with Google all about video sitemaps. If you watch until the end, you'll hear a complete discussion about YouTube and video sitemaps. I'm embedding this video into this post just so you can see that it gets indexed as a video after the post goes live.

The proof? Here's a screenshot I took of a Google search result less than a few minutes after publishing this post.

About the Author - Mark R Robertson

Mark Robertson is the Founder and Publisher of ReelSEO, an online information resource dedicated to the fusion of video, technology, social media, search, and internet marketing. He is a YouTube Certified, video marketing consultant and video marketing expert, popular speaker, and considered to be a passionate leader within the online video and search marketing industries. View All Posts By - Mark R Robertson

What do you think? ▼

L_R_Sexton

Its all about the ad revenue you touched on. Makes sense really.

http://heliosmm.com OliviaBusta

I just came across this post and I cannot decide if this is a good or bad thing. It definitely helps simplify the process of getting videos indexed, but I wonder how this is going to influence the site when others have embedded the same video to their site. Either way I appreciate the information!

http://www.camerawize.com jbayston

Hi does this work for videos that are placed in widgets on the page? I am a newby and can't think how they would apply indexing if the widget appears on multiple pages in the site....

kevino

Is anyone still seeing Google indexing YouTube embeds as coming from the embedder's site? I have a mixture of YouTube embeds (using standard iframe code) and jw player embeds of my own files, and only my files get displayed in search results with thumbnails.

I suspect Google is now simply crawling them and counting a link toward the original, which is the only version displayed with a thumb.

LuukOldeBijvank

Hi there. I did everything i could. i tried this without sitemap and incl sitemap. Some with iframe, some via the old way. My site is indexed in google videos, but i cannot find it in the SERPS.

Could you elaborate why this is maybe? website www.nicehmarketingreviews.nl Here you can see that they are indexed: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=vid&hl=nl&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=835&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fnichemarketingreviews.nl%2Feen-goede-niche-vinden-met-keyword-blaze-pro%2F&gbv=2&oq=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fnichemarketingreviews.nl%2Feen-goede-niche-vinden-met-keyword-blaze-pro%2F&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=video-hp.12...4201.27969.0.29170.6.6.0.0.0.0.113.366.5j1.6.0...0.0.jxd-JdktIxw#hl=nl&gbv=2&tbm=vid&sclient=psy-ab&q=site:http%3A%2F%2Fnichemarketingreviews.nl&oq=site:http%3A%2F%2Fnichemarketingreviews.nl&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=serp.3...35261.35367.0.35550.2.2.0.0.0.0.49.92.2.2.0...0.0.0O1OkILfRaU&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=bf659a43e7ae2114&biw=1920&bih=835

Now if you try to search for the exact match title in google web search and these are the results: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=vid&hl=nl&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=835&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fnichemarketingreviews.nl%2Feen-goede-niche-vinden-met-keyword-blaze-pro%2F&gbv=2&oq=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fnichemarketingreviews.nl%2Feen-goede-niche-vinden-met-keyword-blaze-pro%2F&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=video-hp.12...4201.27969.0.29170.6.6.0.0.0.0.113.366.5j1.6.0...0.0.jxd-JdktIxw#hl=nl&gbv=2&q=backlinks+concurrenten+analyseren&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=vw&ei=runRT93JA-mw0AX2lq2CBA&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=19ce3d4db62a0528&biw=1920&bih=835

So there are no thumbnails next to my title. The authorHreview does display the stars, but i cannot make it display the thumbnail. Been trying for ages now, i really would appreciate your help!

Chris2Thomas

Forgive me if this has been asked here already; I have searched for the question and answer but can't see it anywhere.

My question is, how the heck do you resize Youtube videos these days in WordPress when just pasting the url into the wp visual editor. I've tried all sorts but nothing seems to work. It used to be so easy.

Im very new to Video SEO. I recently started embedding youtube videos into my bigcommerce clothing website. I plan to add 360 videos of all my products soon to help with sales and SEO. I embedded 2 videos as a test:

http://www.marigoldchic.com/celebrity-bandage-dresses/ I read about Iframe but I just embedded the video the normal way.

Im trying to find the video in google videos but it doesnt show up anywhere on the web with this link: Site:www.YourSite.com/YourPage_URL/

I just ordered all the 360 photo equipment and spent big $$$$ on all of it. I dont want to screw this up. My first objective it to give my customers better shopping experience but secondly I hope the videos will help my website rank better.

Should I use Youtube to embed all videos to my product pages or should I use a service that gives my site ownership of the videos. Which one will be better for rankings?

Secondly, am i doing something wrong because the 2 videos uploaded to google is not showing up in a google video search.

Amy help willl greatly be appreciated.

thanks

marigoldchic

Hi

Im very new to Video SEO. I recently started embedding youtube videos into my bigcommerce clothing website. I plan to add 360 videos of all my products soon to help with sales and SEO. I embedded 2 videos as a test:

http://www.marigoldchic.com/celebrity-bandage-dresses/ I read about Iframe but I just embedded the video the normal way.

Im trying to find the video in google videos but it doesnt show up anywhere on the web with this link: Site:www.YourSite.com/YourPage_URL/

I just ordered all the 360 photo equipment and spent big $$$$ on all of it. I dont want to screw this up. My first objective it to give my customers better shopping experience but secondly I hope the videos will help my website rank better.

Should I use Youtube to embed all videos to my product pages or should I use a service that gives my site ownership of the videos. Which one will be better for rankings?

Secondly, am i doing something wrong because the 2 videos uploaded to google is not showing up in a google video search.

Amy help willl greatly be appreciated.

thanks

http://www.discountvacationrentalsonline.com DVRO

Yet again proof that the site: query for indexed pages is not reliable. We do vacation rentals in Orlando and we video tape each property and post to youtube. In Google Video, all 839 videos that we have are listed there (with thumb and linked to each property page on the site). If we do a site: query for all pages on the Google 'Everything', it only shows 500 pages total. Ridiculous? You bet. Awesome post Mark!

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@DVRO Thanks. I dont know what site you are but it could be that their only showing you 500 due to dup content? do you have that filter on or off in the URL search parameter?

Maxp

I'm confused a site parameter is just a limited search function for you site. From what I can tell it's acting like a catalog of what content is on the site and not giving you full credit for the video. If you search in regular search with no parameters the video reverts back to the original location it's hosted on. Unless you can show me one that is showing the video in regular search with no site parameter that is just embedding a video using an iframe, I really don't see this being an issue.

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@Maxp very interesting point maxp. Im going to check that right now

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@Maxp just doing some spot checking and as you stated, Im not having an easy time finding it without the site parameter. What do you think would be the reason that these results would be surfacing at all within the videos search? I can tell you that without a doubt, the attribution/cataloging wasn't working in the past. Im going to keep looking for examples but I think you're onto something here and something I may have overlooked. Ill keep looking for some examples.

markdulisse1

@reelseo @Maxp I think Google is fixing their search as we type, and reading our blogs, as I suggest.

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@markdulisse1 @Maxp :) Probably.. Though, I did just find an example... If you search "fitness my better life site exercise videos" in videos search, check #4

Joshua Kostka

@reelseo Well, I see my videos in video search result without the site: parameter... I do seem to need the site title in my search query, though... otherwise the YouTube version and other embedded ones show before the video embedded on my own site. Search for anything starting with 'engvid' to test.

http://noahsdad.com/ NoahsDad

We have a video website where we do a daily video and I checked and we don't seem to have any vidoes indexed in google. They all go to youtube.

(http://noahsdad.com/)

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

@NoahsDad I tried a random search on one of your posts with an embedded video and it was indexed. Here is the link to the Google search. http://www.google.com/search?q=How%20A%20Slide%20Helps%20Our%2010%20Month%20Old%20Develop%20Abs%20Of%20Steel&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&source=hp&channel=np

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

@NoahsDad Here is the video search on Google for your indexed paged with embedded video http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=google#q=site:noahsdad.com&hl=en&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=vid&ei=GtadT_eGJcSuiALNzLSXAQ&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=4&ved=0CAsQ_AUoAw&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=aa790ba00481dfd0&biw=1577&bih=692

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@NoahsDad Yeah, As kyle said, you have over 100 results - check it - http://bit.ly/J5OzNc

markdulisse1

@NoahsDad Yesterday they were, but you are right, not today. Google is fixing their search on this most likely. Blog posts gave away the loophole. :(

markdulisse1

@NoahsDad @reelseo Don't do site search. Yesterday, NoahsDad has video results in keyword search. I saw it myself. It was here, but today it is not: http://tinyurl.com/d9qlzrk

pgrichards

Great post and I certainly agree that it is an exciting time for video and indexation. I, like many, are seeking the 'holy grail' of video thumbnail in Universal and are currently conducting some experimentation on a number of different domains: some with some vintage and one quite new. I noticed something interesting the other day. I was using a random video embedded via the older <object> tag and positioned sitewide with no video sitemap - take a look at the resulting video serp: http://bit.ly/Ie4JoF. The video has been indexed for each of the posts. I have since removed that and added other random videos to posts with a variety of embed methods - so far with no luck using the <iFrame> method. I am also trying a test with a video hosted on a client server and submitted with a formal sitemap - so far the video has been indexed in Google video, but has not shown up in Universal.

erika_austin

Thank you for covering this topic. I've been asking around on forums and searching around and I haven't found an answer until I came here. Some of it might be a little over my head, but very excited that my videos are directing to our website. Thank you for the detailed post!

http://webonlinems.com/ webonlinevids

Hi Mark R,

I've got quite a number of Youtube videos embedded on my site and I have to say what you suggested does not appear to be the case for my site. I'm no expert and would love to get some explanation if there is one as to why this is the case.

Thanks

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@webonlinevids As I mentioned, it could very well be a bug, but I dont think it is at this point. That being said, I see 26 results in video for your site. See here - http://bit.ly/JuvFDk

http://webonlinems.com/ webonlinevids

@reelseo Hi Mark, Thanks very much for your reply and the link. Seems to be working just fine!!! :-).

markdulisse1

Sorry Mark Robertson, I disagree entirely that Google now does this. It is more of an mishap more than a new video seo method. A video sitemap with self hosted videos is the only consistent way to get your videos in the serps.

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

@markdulisse1 Mark, it's true that self hosted videos and video sitemaps are the safe way; however Google is indexing and showing those results in the SERPS of YouTube embedded videos. This is a fact. I've experienced the same with several clients whose videos we are embedding on their site.

MarkDulisse

I tested this and it is not anywhere conclusive.

In fact, even thumbnails themselves of Youtube's own videos are not getting in the serps recently.

The fact remains, using self hosted and a GoogleVideoSitemap.com :) is the best way to get your videos in the serps.

Here is a recent Youtube i posted with thumbnail not in the serps, and you can see my other self hosted video in the seprs using GVS.

Glad they did this, but as a YT partner with over 35 million views whose content is scraped by thousands of splogs, I'm unhappy to report that many of the large video scraper sites now rank above my own PR6 site in Google Video search. So far I haven't seen any of these pop up in Universal Search yet -- just the original YouTube links do that. And Video search as its own entity is de-emphasized with the current Google menu bar at the top -- it was replaced with YouTube.

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

Quick question....do we know if Panda has effected video rankings and if so, how?

BernardDinoBonomo

@Kyle Clouse Hey Kyle.. It's Bernie -producer of YES Movie. Haven't seen your name in a while, and glad to find you reading up on this awesome posting..

I'd love to talk with you about my video marketing business sometime, as I know you are an expert Internet Marketer and I'm a producer with hundreds of B2B videos that need to get out there. message me on FB when you're free to chat. Thanks!

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

@BernardDinoBonomo Hey Bernard, I would love to catch up. A lot has been going on since the YES movie. I'll send you my number in Facebook.

http://www.videoleadsonline.com/ videoleadsonline

Mark, with the WordPress paste in the YouTube URL thingy, can you control the rel=0 (turn off related videos at the end) when doing that paste URL method? If so what is the code you ad to the URL?

NonPublished

Looking for someone to create a YouTube Video for our home page NonPublished_dot_Com Please review the site and contact us on the contact us button on our home page. Thanks

NonPublished

Looking for someone to create a YouTube Video for our home page http://www.NonPublished.com

Please review the site and contact us on the contact us button on our home page. Thanks

Gary Bairead

I tweeted Matt Cutts when I noticed this at the end of March - http://bit.ly/I3xWUf , http://bit.ly/ImI35b

My first thought was that his could be open to abuse by spammers placing other people embeds on their pages to increase CTRs.

To prevent that, it would seem to make sense to introduce some form of verified Youtube 'authorship', which would only allow the creator of a videor to embed it on their site & get credit/video snippets, possibly through linking a Youtube account to a Google+ account.

This is awesome! One question I have is...do you need to physically embed the video OR can you use a Word Press plugin like you stated in the article to auto grab videos for you and place them on your site?

The plugin that I have in question is the WordPress Automatic YouTube Video Posts plugin. http://www.ternstyle.us/products/plugins/wordpress/wordpress-automatic-youtube-video-posts

Chris2Thomas

@Kyle Clouse Karl, I asked Mark a similar question (@Chris2Thomas) and he replied:

" If you have the latest version of WordPress, you should just be able to put the YouTube URL in the post and it would automatically convert it to an oEmbed iframe, which works. Source: Try that. You'll want to go into media settings and enable the checkbox for embeds Source:

Hope that helps.

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

@Chris2Thomas Thanks Chris! I appreciate the response.

http://3rdplanetmedia.com/ 3rdplanet

I notice a difference between what Blogger reports on our YouTube channel. Any thoughts on this?

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@3rdplanet Can you clarify your question? Im not sure I understand

Chris2Thomas

Thanks for this, Mark, it's a big eye opener! Do you (or anyone else here) happen to know of a quick and easy way to embed the iFrames code into WordPress though? Whenever I have tried embedding a Youtube video using iFrames it doesn't work.

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@Chris2Thomas If you have the latest version of WordPress, you should just be able to put the YouTube URL in the post and it would automatically convert it to an oEmbed iframe, which works. Try that. You'll want to go into media settings and enable the checkbox for embeds

Chris2Thomas

@reelseo

Thanks for getting back to me on that, I appreciate it.

I do have the latest version of WordPress and I do put videos into my posts using the Youtube URL but I didn't realize doing that automatically converts them to an iFrame. Embeds are enabled in media settings too.

I just ran a check in in Google videos (again) using site:mysite.com and see that my pages with Youtube videos are in fact showing up there. However, when I do a Universal Search the thumbnails are not showing up next to any of my results so I guess Google does not consider video results to be relevant to the users’ search in my case. I'll keep watching out to see if things change. As you say, it'll be interesting to see how things pan out!

Thanks again, Mark!

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@Chris2Thomas NP. yeah, it's a nifty wordpress feature. As for universal, it's going to depend entirely on the users that search, their intent, history, personalization, etc.... It's a tough one to catch out in the wild. Good luck.

Chris2Thomas

Thanks for this, Mark, it's a big eye opener! Do you (or anyone else here) happen to know of a quick and easy way to embed the iFrames code into WordPress though? Whenever I have tried embedding a Toutube video using iFrames it doesn't work.

Scott Harrell

Thanks for the fix... great article.

http://Technopsisblog.com/ Technopsis

Wow, very interesting matter. Thank you for your thorough testing! I am currently doing some basic research on the VSEO market as a graduation project and posts like these are VERY helpful! It is great to see that the VSEO rules are still very much alive and changing. I guess we can expect to see youtube embedds work pretty much the same as any other embedd, correct?I hope to see more on this subject - thanks for sharing again! :)

Greg Brand

Great article Thx Mark! This is surely going to have massive ramifications for other 3rd party hosting platforms. But if everyone is now being indexed so much easier, what do we do to get ahead of the pack? Very interesting times indeed ;)

Scott Harrell

Your guys' Cloudflare Virus Defender seriously blows. I cannot access your site even though I am 100% positive that no problem exists on my iPad or my private network.

Chris Abbott

Ooops on mobile... will be with SEO more so than now... some of the video platform companies must be a tad distressed as Google shows dominance once again...

Chris Abbott

Great article buddy and great news as well... very interested to see how this effects the serps and what will happen on syndicated videos... Very quick way for google to show how effective video marketing will with SEO

Zigma Video

Thanks so much for this post. I had noticed the same with my website url containing my YouTube embedded videos showing up above the YouTube video itself on the search results - but without the thumbnail. I'll be watching closely too, to see if this is maintained.

David Patterson

This is BIG news, I think it might hurt Treepodia's business some!!

Chuck Wilson

Very cool!

ReelSEO

3 happy smiley face winks

ReelSEO

Thanks. How did you read it already ;-) I basically wrote a darn book. I tried to be concise but certainly came out wordy ;-) Thanks Julie... Hopefully we'll be seeing you on ReelSEO soon ;-)

Julie Perry

Excellent post, Mark!

Kieran Farr

Mark, thanks for this writeup, excellent stuff. Full disclosure, I'm one of the founders at VidCaster, an online video platform that focuses on making video sites, not just a video player object.

We have been seeing Google index not only YouTube iframe embeds, but also VidCaster's HTML5 video player (based off of the open source VideoJS player) served in an iframe. I'm seeing a couple trends here: - iframe based players are easier to introspect by search engines since they are essentially simple HTML with standards-compliant <video> tags - Google appears to be indexing the HTML5 video object itself (whether YouTube or our own player), and in fact in the past week we have noticed that Google Video Search index has been ignoring some of our video sitemaps' "loc" attribute and instead indexing the HTML5 player itself "player_loc". - Looking at this from a high-level perspective, it seems to me they are working to make their iframe video parser to be general purpose, and not just for YouTube's iframe player. It also seems as though they may be able to move in a direction to drop video sitemaps all together, pending the fall of Flash as the dominant video playback mechanism within the next year or so.

This is excellent news for the Internet if Google indeed goes in this direction. For many content publishers, whether businesses or original content creators, it is crucial to be able to drive traffic to one's own site, not a third-party destination site like YouTube.

The discussion about unique selling propositions for video platforms hits close to home. We're excited about these changes at VidCaster since our core belief is that users should be able to create and host their own video website, regardless of video player system used.

Looking forward to seeing this fully rolled out.

Kieran

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@Kieran Farr Im looking forward to talking to ya. I've been seeing the same things and there's a lot more to it I think.

Peabody Wormsworth

Im not using iframes, instead opting to use the embed player like this: swfobject.embedSWF("http://www.youtube.com/v/...

I have referenced all my video pages only through a sitemap.xml. I am also using schema meta data.

Google added my videos to their video search area.

I mention this, because like the parent poster, google is not limiting their indexing to iframe setups.

AzzamSheikh

When conducting a search in Google I see 3 videos appear at the top. 2 from Youtube (the video has 2 parts) and 1 is embedding within another site but is not Youtube video but has ripped the video from youtube and uploaded to the site.

The clients site does have the original video's (the 2 from youtube are the clients) embedded like this <iframe width="620" height="380" src="http://www.youtube.com/xxxxx" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> and a wordpress video sitemap (seems to be obsolete as per article). The client site appears as number 4 in the listing (no.1 if excluding the video's) but this is a standard position in the serps and not Video. So has not worked here in the UK as far as this one client is concerned or are the missing something with the iframe embed code?

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@AzzamSheikh do a search in Google Videos directly as that will show if there's a thumbnail. It wont always show in universal but if it's in Google Videos, it's eligible to.

Yaniv Axen

Great post Mark! BTW, I see that searching for "How to Get Embedded YouTube Videos on Your Site" still brings up YouTube results over the video you embedded on Reelseo.com. At least for me. So while videos showing up on video search is great, it still appears that Google favors YouTube over your own content.

Yaniv CTO www.sundaysky.com

YairHaleviSpock

Very interesting development and helpful research, Mark. Thanks!

We've seen similar bizarre behavior of schema.org VideoObject tags - and not just for YouTube embedded videos, but also for other third-party embeds. For us, however, it seems like this started happening only today (April 17), and it isn't consistent across all sites. Some sites have all their results show up with thumbnails, others have all their video SERPs without.

YairHaleviSpock

@reelseo I'm located in Israel, but we've seen identical results for searches made from the US. The site itself is US based. This is troubling... would love to reach out to Google and figure out why this is happening.

YairHaleviSpock

@reelseo Quick update - the thumbnails that disappeared for us on April 17th are now back (for non-YouTube videos). Perhaps the schema.org issue was fixed. But I haven't checked how it affects YouTube videos.

http://www.videoleadsonline.com/ videoleadsonline

Still trying to let this sink in fully! WOW... I'd bring you a dog bone, but I'm sure that you wouldn't really appreciate it... so here is a Virtual LICK in the face!

BTW, I can see that some of my video embeds are getting thumbnails/Indexed via Google Video (as you tell us to check) but they are using 'older embed' code not the newer iFrame code. As we all dig into the subtleties, I'm sure we'll report back. I will definitely be Yapping about this for a while on Google+ (as my Person personality: Ronnie Bincer).

AbrahamErickson

This is a very interesting development, Mark. We are actually in the process of deciding on an OVP for one of our clients and search engine ranking is a top priority, but so is branding. When I saw this article the first question I had was, "How are the OVPs going to respond to this?" There are four USPs that I think OVPs still may have going for them over YouTube, even with the embed/SEO dilemma: 1) Branding, 2) Analytics, 3) Interactive Videos (Click Link to go to site other than a YouTube site), 4) Lead Generation.

What are your thoughts on these USPs and how important are they for businesses compared to SEO?

http://www.videoleadsonline.com/ videoleadsonline

@AbrahamErickson I'm with you... the OVP will need to stress their other offerings (which are many and can be powerful motivators) but if this new dev stays with us, the 'Video Sitemap/we drive traffic to your site not YouTube' argument gets Much Less Traction for them.

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@AbrahamErickson I think the OVPs have many very compelling USPs outside of SEO and I really think that SEO shouldnt be a USP for an OVP anyway. I think those that did take that as their approach are going to suffer but otherwise, I dont think this will have that much of an effect. Most people that have signed up with, or are in need of, and OVP, have many other important business objectives that just cant be obtained with YouTube. The biggest - Monetization. ;-) Thanks for your feedback

JeremyVest

Huge news thanks for the hard work.

HansSchmart

Thanks Mark - it's great that you broke this news -given that most people thought they could do this anyway and were confused when it didn't work! I agree that owners of video platforms will have to remove a USP from their service proposition. However it's still a YT embed code that comes with all that ad baggage and there will always be those who don't want that on their site as you say above. I also noticed recently Google is indexing the home page and other important pages in video serches with a thumbnail that are the homepage or that don't even have videos on them. E.g. when you do a video search such as - site:vidmeup.com The first result is a page of links to vidmeup created sites and the second is the home page. This has only been this way for a couple of weeks too. This is new!

DustinNay

That's a crazy big deal! As a content creator, this makes me both nervous and excited! Nervous because someone else could outrank me with my own content, and excited because this totally broadens the base of motivated bloggers to expose my content to a larger audience.

http://www.videoleadsonline.com/ videoleadsonline

@DustinNay I hear you... the Nervous side of this is speaking Loud and Clear as other sites may decide to do MORE SITES that show my stuff... giving me more reason to 'monetize' it with YouTube ads, but causing me pause if the goal of the video was to drive traffic to my site.

My perspective is that the video (now more than ever) needs to display visually the URL for my site AND have the verbal encouragement to visit my site as part of the video... that way when/if someone outranks me for it on the SERPs, I still have the chance of getting traffic by those that watched it off my site!

KenMorico

I've seen this on my own site listing as well. I don't post many videos, but I was excited to see the thumbnails. I only use iframe embed code on my posts. Of course, Google has an $interest in getting users to your page... if it gets traffic I don't think we care if Google makes a few bucks in the process...

http://www.videoleadsonline.com/ videoleadsonline

Wow! Zowwie! Amazing development, I'm speechless... Cat Got My Tongue! (humor there). I'm sure I'll be poking at this for a while Mark. Good job digging in, and now you know you can totally trust me right?... I did not let a peep out since you whispered the secret into my cute doggie ears!

But I'll be shouting this from the Rooftops very very soon - once I get all the details straight in my pea-brain head. Wow.. This is truly what us 'YouTube Posting Guys' have been waiting for. I wish there was a way to establish ownership and only the real owner would get the video Thumbnail/SERP listing, but I'll take what I can get, right!

WOW!!! Throw the Dog a Tasty Dog Bone (Oh... they just did!!!)

ThomasOwadenko

does that mean that if i build a website with text and i find good videos to embed for each post i get big chances to be over well index by curating YT in my blog post and add videos from there?

http://www.videoleadsonline.com/ videoleadsonline

@ThomasOwadenko Yup... simply adding someone else's video (as an embed) on your site that is Relevant to your content - uses a good Title perhaps that matches what you are talking about - may get your site ranked with a Video thumbnail with this new development.

http://www.myeasydata.com/ dvdrepairtips

Ok, so let me get this straight... Google actually made it easier to deal with embedded videos on my sites and get them indexed? So, like my job just got easier? Can't think of anything to say really... world in turmoil... brain hurts... must lie down and rest.

http://www.videoleadsonline.com/ videoleadsonline

@dvdrepairtips Feel free to REST... it is amazing isn't it?

aardvarkfilms

Wow - that's huge. Sitemaps are such a pain when you upload videos regularly (such as with a video blog) so if this keeps working I'll definitely use a YouTube embed over other sites.

Thanks so much for letting us know.

http://heliosmm.com OliviaBusta

I just came across this post and I cannot decide if this is a good or bad thing. It definitely helps simplify the process of getting videos indexed, but I wonder how this is going to influence the site when others have embedded the same video to their site. Either way I appreciate the information!

http://www.camerawize.com jbayston

Hi does this work for videos that are placed in widgets on the page? I am a newby and can't think how they would apply indexing if the widget appears on multiple pages in the site....

kevino

Is anyone still seeing Google indexing YouTube embeds as coming from the embedder's site? I have a mixture of YouTube embeds (using standard iframe code) and jw player embeds of my own files, and only my files get displayed in search results with thumbnails.

I suspect Google is now simply crawling them and counting a link toward the original, which is the only version displayed with a thumb.

LuukOldeBijvank

Hi there. I did everything i could. i tried this without sitemap and incl sitemap. Some with iframe, some via the old way. My site is indexed in google videos, but i cannot find it in the SERPS.

Could you elaborate why this is maybe? website www.nicehmarketingreviews.nl Here you can see that they are indexed:http://tinyurl.com/73zoafy

Now if you try to search for the exact match title in google web search and these are the results: http://tinyurl.com/6re7zfn So there are no thumbnails next to my title. The authorHreview does display the stars, but i cannot make it display the thumbnail. Been trying for ages now, i really would appreciate your help!

Chris2Thomas

Forgive me if this has been asked here already; I have searched for the question and answer but can't see it anywhere.

My question is, how the heck do you resize Youtube videos these days in WordPress when just pasting the url into the wp visual editor. I've tried all sorts but nothing seems to work. It used to be so easy.

What ARE the new best sizes to use there, then? Right now I have 150x150, 300x300 and 1024x1024

Seems that G+ shares need an image above 600px?

marigoldchic

Hi

Im very new to Video SEO. I recently started embedding youtube videos into my bigcommerce clothing website. I plan to add 360 videos of all my products soon to help with sales and SEO. I embedded 2 videos as a test:

http://www.marigoldchic.com/celebrity-bandage-dresses/ I read about Iframe but I just embedded the video the normal way.

Im trying to find the video in google videos but it doesnt show up anywhere on the web with this link: Site:www.YourSite.com/YourPage_URL/

I just ordered all the 360 photo equipment and spent big $$$$ on all of it. I dont want to screw this up. My first objective it to give my customers better shopping experience but secondly I hope the videos will help my website rank better.

Should I use Youtube to embed all videos to my product pages or should I use a service that gives my site ownership of the videos. Which one will be better for rankings?

Secondly, am i doing something wrong because the 2 videos uploaded to google is not showing up in a google video search.

Amy help willl greatly be appreciated.

thanks

DVRO

Yet again proof that the site: query for indexed pages is not reliable. We do vacation rentals in Orlando and we video tape each property and post to youtube. In Google Video, all 839 videos that we have are listed there (with thumb and linked to each property page on the site). If we do a site: query for all pages on the Google 'Everything', it only shows 500 pages total. Ridiculous? You bet. Awesome post Mark!

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@DVRO Thanks. I dont know what site you are but it could be that their only showing you 500 due to dup content? do you have that filter on or off in the URL search parameter?

Maxp

I'm confused a site parameter is just a limited search function for you site. From what I can tell it's acting like a catalog of what content is on the site and not giving you full credit for the video. If you search in regular search with no parameters the video reverts back to the original location it's hosted on. Unless you can show me one that is showing the video in regular search with no site parameter that is just embedding a video using an iframe, I really don't see this being an issue.

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@Maxp very interesting point maxp. Im going to check that right now

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@Maxp just doing some spot checking and as you stated, Im not having an easy time finding it without the site parameter. What do you think would be the reason that these results would be surfacing at all within the videos search? I can tell you that without a doubt, the attribution/cataloging wasn't working in the past. Im going to keep looking for examples but I think you're onto something here and something I may have overlooked. Ill keep looking for some examples.

markdulisse1

@reelseo @Maxp I think Google is fixing their search as we type, and reading our blogs, as I suggest.

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@markdulisse1 @Maxp :) Probably.. Though, I did just find an example... If you search "fitness my better life site exercise videos" in videos search, check #4

Joshua Kostka

@reelseo Well, I see my videos in video search result without the site: parameter... I do seem to need the site title in my search query, though... otherwise the YouTube version and other embedded ones show before the video embedded on my own site. Search for anything starting with 'engvid' to test.

http://noahsdad.com/ NoahsDad

We have a video website where we do a daily video and I checked and we don't seem to have any vidoes indexed in google. They all go to youtube.

(http://noahsdad.com/)

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

@NoahsDad I tried a random search on one of your posts with an embedded video and it was indexed. Here is the link to the Google search. http://www.google.com/search?q=How%20A%20Slide%20Helps%20Our%2010%20Month%20Old%20Develop%20Abs%20Of%20Steel&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&source=hp&channel=np

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

@NoahsDad Here is the video search on Google for your indexed paged with embedded video http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=google#q=site:noahsdad.com&hl=en&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=vid&ei=GtadT_eGJcSuiALNzLSXAQ&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=4&ved=0CAsQ_AUoAw&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=aa790ba00481dfd0&biw=1577&bih=692

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@NoahsDad Yeah, As kyle said, you have over 100 results - check it - http://bit.ly/J5OzNc

markdulisse1

@NoahsDad Yesterday they were, but you are right, not today. Google is fixing their search on this most likely. Blog posts gave away the loophole. :(

markdulisse1

@NoahsDad @reelseo Don't do site search. Yesterday, NoahsDad has video results in keyword search. I saw it myself. It was here, but today it is not: http://tinyurl.com/d9qlzrk

pgrichards

Great post and I certainly agree that it is an exciting time for video and indexation. I, like many, are seeking the 'holy grail' of video thumbnail in Universal and are currently conducting some experimentation on a number of different domains: some with some vintage and one quite new. I noticed something interesting the other day. I was using a random video embedded via the older <object> tag and positioned sitewide with no video sitemap - take a look at the resulting video serp: http://bit.ly/Ie4JoF. The video has been indexed for each of the posts. I have since removed that and added other random videos to posts with a variety of embed methods - so far with no luck using the <iFrame> method. I am also trying a test with a video hosted on a client server and submitted with a formal sitemap - so far the video has been indexed in Google video, but has not shown up in Universal.

erika_austin

Thank you for covering this topic. I've been asking around on forums and searching around and I haven't found an answer until I came here. Some of it might be a little over my head, but very excited that my videos are directing to our website. Thank you for the detailed post!

http://webonlinems.com/ webonlinevids

Hi Mark R,

I've got quite a number of Youtube videos embedded on my site and I have to say what you suggested does not appear to be the case for my site. I'm no expert and would love to get some explanation if there is one as to why this is the case.

Thanks

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@webonlinevids As I mentioned, it could very well be a bug, but I dont think it is at this point. That being said, I see 26 results in video for your site. See here - http://bit.ly/JuvFDk

http://webonlinems.com/ webonlinevids

@reelseo Hi Mark, Thanks very much for your reply and the link. Seems to be working just fine!!! :-).

markdulisse1

Sorry Mark Robertson, I disagree entirely that Google now does this. It is more of an mishap more than a new video seo method. A video sitemap with self hosted videos is the only consistent way to get your videos in the serps.

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

@markdulisse1 Mark, it's true that self hosted videos and video sitemaps are the safe way; however Google is indexing and showing those results in the SERPS of YouTube embedded videos. This is a fact. I've experienced the same with several clients whose videos we are embedding on their site.

http://www.reelseo.com/about/mark/ Mark R Robertson

Mark. I think I mentioned at least twice in the article that I cant say with any certainty whether or not this is a bug. That being said, after some recent conversations with folks involved, it does seem to be that it may actually have been intentional. We'll have to wait and see. There are certainly many reasons why one would want to host and do a video sitemap on their own anyways, and I would agree that it's much more of a surefire thing at this point, but this is certainly happening, in volume, at this point. Time will tell if it's a bug. Thanks for commenting - great to see you on the site Mark.

MarkDulisse

I tested this and it is not anywhere conclusive.

In fact, even thumbnails themselves of Youtube's own videos are not getting in the serps recently.

The fact remains, using self hosted and a GoogleVideoSitemap.com :) is the best way to get your videos in the serps.

Here is a recent Youtube i posted with thumbnail not in the serps, and you can see my other self hosted video in the seprs using GVS.

Glad they did this, but as a YT partner with over 35 million views whose content is scraped by thousands of splogs, I'm unhappy to report that many of the large video scraper sites now rank above my own PR6 site in Google Video search. So far I haven't seen any of these pop up in Universal Search yet -- just the original YouTube links do that. And Video search as its own entity is de-emphasized with the current Google menu bar at the top -- it was replaced with YouTube.

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

Quick question....do we know if Panda has effected video rankings and if so, how?

BernardDinoBonomo

@Kyle Clouse Hey Kyle.. It's Bernie -producer of YES Movie. Haven't seen your name in a while, and glad to find you reading up on this awesome posting..

I'd love to talk with you about my video marketing business sometime, as I know you are an expert Internet Marketer and I'm a producer with hundreds of B2B videos that need to get out there. message me on FB when you're free to chat. Thanks!

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

@BernardDinoBonomo Hey Bernard, I would love to catch up. A lot has been going on since the YES movie. I'll send you my number in Facebook.

videoleadsonline

Mark, with the WordPress paste in the YouTube URL thingy, can you control the rel=0 (turn off related videos at the end) when doing that paste URL method? If so what is the code you ad to the URL?

NonPublished

Looking for someone to create a YouTube Video for our home page NonPublished_dot_Com Please review the site and contact us on the contact us button on our home page. Thanks

NonPublished

Looking for someone to create a YouTube Video for our home page http://www.NonPublished.com

Please review the site and contact us on the contact us button on our home page. Thanks

Gary Bairead

I tweeted Matt Cutts when I noticed this at the end of March - http://bit.ly/I3xWUf , http://bit.ly/ImI35b

My first thought was that his could be open to abuse by spammers placing other people embeds on their pages to increase CTRs.

To prevent that, it would seem to make sense to introduce some form of verified Youtube 'authorship', which would only allow the creator of a videor to embed it on their site & get credit/video snippets, possibly through linking a Youtube account to a Google+ account.

That was my direct suggestion to Google last year but it looks like they may have decided to open it up. Im still not convinced as to whether it's intentional but I suppose at this point it must be. I wish I had seen your tweets ;-) Thanks for commenting Gary

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

This is awesome! One question I have is...do you need to physically embed the video OR can you use a Word Press plugin like you stated in the article to auto grab videos for you and place them on your site?

The plugin that I have in question is the WordPress Automatic YouTube Video Posts plugin. http://www.ternstyle.us/products/plugins/wordpress/wordpress-automatic-youtube-video-posts

Chris2Thomas

@Kyle Clouse Karl, I asked Mark a similar question (@Chris2Thomas) and he replied:

" If you have the latest version of WordPress, you should just be able to put the YouTube URL in the post and it would automatically convert it to an oEmbed iframe, which works. Source: Try that. You'll want to go into media settings and enable the checkbox for embeds Source:

Hope that helps.

http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse

@Chris2Thomas Thanks Chris! I appreciate the response.

http://3rdplanetmedia.com/ 3rdplanet

I notice a difference between what Blogger reports on our YouTube channel. Any thoughts on this?

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@3rdplanet Can you clarify your question? Im not sure I understand

Chris2Thomas

Thanks for this, Mark, it's a big eye opener! Do you (or anyone else here) happen to know of a quick and easy way to embed the iFrames code into WordPress though? Whenever I have tried embedding a Youtube video using iFrames it doesn't work.

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@Chris2Thomas If you have the latest version of WordPress, you should just be able to put the YouTube URL in the post and it would automatically convert it to an oEmbed iframe, which works. Try that. You'll want to go into media settings and enable the checkbox for embeds

Chris2Thomas

@reelseo

Thanks for getting back to me on that, I appreciate it.

I do have the latest version of WordPress and I do put videos into my posts using the Youtube URL but I didn't realize doing that automatically converts them to an iFrame. Embeds are enabled in media settings too.

I just ran a check in in Google videos (again) using site:mysite.com and see that my pages with Youtube videos are in fact showing up there. However, when I do a Universal Search the thumbnails are not showing up next to any of my results so I guess Google does not consider video results to be relevant to the users’ search in my case. I'll keep watching out to see if things change. As you say, it'll be interesting to see how things pan out!

Thanks again, Mark!

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@Chris2Thomas NP. yeah, it's a nifty wordpress feature. As for universal, it's going to depend entirely on the users that search, their intent, history, personalization, etc.... It's a tough one to catch out in the wild. Good luck.

Chris2Thomas

Thanks for this, Mark, it's a big eye opener! Do you (or anyone else here) happen to know of a quick and easy way to embed the iFrames code into WordPress though? Whenever I have tried embedding a Toutube video using iFrames it doesn't work.

Scott Harrell

Thanks for the fix... great article.

Greg Brand

Great article Thx Mark! This is surely going to have massive ramifications for other 3rd party hosting platforms. But if everyone is now being indexed so much easier, what do we do to get ahead of the pack? Very interesting times indeed ;)

Scott Harrell

Your guys' Cloudflare Virus Defender seriously blows. I cannot access your site even though I am 100% positive that no problem exists on my iPad or my private network.

Chris Abbott

Ooops on mobile... will be with SEO more so than now... some of the video platform companies must be a tad distressed as Google shows dominance once again...

Chris Abbott

Great article buddy and great news as well... very interested to see how this effects the serps and what will happen on syndicated videos... Very quick way for google to show how effective video marketing will with SEO

Zigma Video

Thanks so much for this post. I had noticed the same with my website url containing my YouTube embedded videos showing up above the YouTube video itself on the search results - but without the thumbnail. I'll be watching closely too, to see if this is maintained.

David Patterson

This is BIG news, I think it might hurt Treepodia's business some!!

Chuck Wilson

Very cool!

ReelSEO

3 happy smiley face winks

ReelSEO

Thanks. How did you read it already ;-) I basically wrote a darn book. I tried to be concise but certainly came out wordy ;-) Thanks Julie... Hopefully we'll be seeing you on ReelSEO soon ;-)

Julie Perry

Excellent post, Mark!

Kieran Farr

Mark, thanks for this writeup, excellent stuff. Full disclosure, I'm one of the founders at VidCaster, an online video platform that focuses on making video sites, not just a video player object.

We have been seeing Google index not only YouTube iframe embeds, but also VidCaster's HTML5 video player (based off of the open source VideoJS player) served in an iframe. I'm seeing a couple trends here: - iframe based players are easier to introspect by search engines since they are essentially simple HTML with standards-compliant <video> tags - Google appears to be indexing the HTML5 video object itself (whether YouTube or our own player), and in fact in the past week we have noticed that Google Video Search index has been ignoring some of our video sitemaps' "loc" attribute and instead indexing the HTML5 player itself "player_loc". - Looking at this from a high-level perspective, it seems to me they are working to make their iframe video parser to be general purpose, and not just for YouTube's iframe player. It also seems as though they may be able to move in a direction to drop video sitemaps all together, pending the fall of Flash as the dominant video playback mechanism within the next year or so.

This is excellent news for the Internet if Google indeed goes in this direction. For many content publishers, whether businesses or original content creators, it is crucial to be able to drive traffic to one's own site, not a third-party destination site like YouTube.

The discussion about unique selling propositions for video platforms hits close to home. We're excited about these changes at VidCaster since our core belief is that users should be able to create and host their own video website, regardless of video player system used.

Looking forward to seeing this fully rolled out.

Kieran

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@Kieran Farr Im looking forward to talking to ya. I've been seeing the same things and there's a lot more to it I think.

AzzamSheikh

When conducting a search in Google I see 3 videos appear at the top. 2 from Youtube (the video has 2 parts) and 1 is embedding within another site but is not Youtube video but has ripped the video from youtube and uploaded to the site.

The clients site does have the original video's (the 2 from youtube are the clients) embedded like this <iframe width="620" height="380" src="http://www.youtube.com/xxxxx" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> and a wordpress video sitemap (seems to be obsolete as per article). The client site appears as number 4 in the listing (no.1 if excluding the video's) but this is a standard position in the serps and not Video. So has not worked here in the UK as far as this one client is concerned or are the missing something with the iframe embed code?

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@AzzamSheikh do a search in Google Videos directly as that will show if there's a thumbnail. It wont always show in universal but if it's in Google Videos, it's eligible to.

Yaniv Axen

Great post Mark! BTW, I see that searching for "How to Get Embedded YouTube Videos on Your Site" still brings up YouTube results over the video you embedded on Reelseo.com. At least for me. So while videos showing up on video search is great, it still appears that Google favors YouTube over your own content.

Yaniv CTO www.sundaysky.com

YairHaleviSpock

Very interesting development and helpful research, Mark. Thanks!

We've seen similar bizarre behavior of schema.org VideoObject tags - and not just for YouTube embedded videos, but also for other third-party embeds. For us, however, it seems like this started happening only today (April 17), and it isn't consistent across all sites. Some sites have all their results show up with thumbnails, others have all their video SERPs without.

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@YairHaleviSpock Yeah I've seen little results (more bizarre) with regard to schema but it is still fairly early on that. Where are you guys located (country?)

YairHaleviSpock

@reelseo I'm located in Israel, but we've seen identical results for searches made from the US. The site itself is US based. This is troubling... would love to reach out to Google and figure out why this is happening.

YairHaleviSpock

@reelseo Quick update - the thumbnails that disappeared for us on April 17th are now back (for non-YouTube videos). Perhaps the schema.org issue was fixed. But I haven't checked how it affects YouTube videos.

videoleadsonline

Still trying to let this sink in fully! WOW... I'd bring you a dog bone, but I'm sure that you wouldn't really appreciate it... so here is a Virtual LICK in the face!

BTW, I can see that some of my video embeds are getting thumbnails/Indexed via Google Video (as you tell us to check) but they are using 'older embed' code not the newer iFrame code. As we all dig into the subtleties, I'm sure we'll report back. I will definitely be Yapping about this for a while on Google+ (as my Person personality: Ronnie Bincer).

AbrahamErickson

This is a very interesting development, Mark. We are actually in the process of deciding on an OVP for one of our clients and search engine ranking is a top priority, but so is branding. When I saw this article the first question I had was, "How are the OVPs going to respond to this?" There are four USPs that I think OVPs still may have going for them over YouTube, even with the embed/SEO dilemma: 1) Branding, 2) Analytics, 3) Interactive Videos (Click Link to go to site other than a YouTube site), 4) Lead Generation.

What are your thoughts on these USPs and how important are they for businesses compared to SEO?

videoleadsonline

@AbrahamErickson I'm with you... the OVP will need to stress their other offerings (which are many and can be powerful motivators) but if this new dev stays with us, the 'Video Sitemap/we drive traffic to your site not YouTube' argument gets Much Less Traction for them.

http://www.reelseo.com/ reelseo

@AbrahamErickson I think the OVPs have many very compelling USPs outside of SEO and I really think that SEO shouldnt be a USP for an OVP anyway. I think those that did take that as their approach are going to suffer but otherwise, I dont think this will have that much of an effect. Most people that have signed up with, or are in need of, and OVP, have many other important business objectives that just cant be obtained with YouTube. The biggest - Monetization. ;-) Thanks for your feedback

JeremyVest

Huge news thanks for the hard work.

HansSchmart

Thanks Mark - it's great that you broke this news -given that most people thought they could do this anyway and were confused when it didn't work! I agree that owners of video platforms will have to remove a USP from their service proposition. However it's still a YT embed code that comes with all that ad baggage and there will always be those who don't want that on their site as you say above. I also noticed recently Google is indexing the home page and other important pages in video serches with a thumbnail that are the homepage or that don't even have videos on them. E.g. when you do a video search such as - site:vidmeup.com The first result is a page of links to vidmeup created sites and the second is the home page. This has only been this way for a couple of weeks too. This is new!

DustinNay

That's a crazy big deal! As a content creator, this makes me both nervous and excited! Nervous because someone else could outrank me with my own content, and excited because this totally broadens the base of motivated bloggers to expose my content to a larger audience.

videoleadsonline

@DustinNay I hear you... the Nervous side of this is speaking Loud and Clear as other sites may decide to do MORE SITES that show my stuff... giving me more reason to 'monetize' it with YouTube ads, but causing me pause if the goal of the video was to drive traffic to my site.

My perspective is that the video (now more than ever) needs to display visually the URL for my site AND have the verbal encouragement to visit my site as part of the video... that way when/if someone outranks me for it on the SERPs, I still have the chance of getting traffic by those that watched it off my site!

KenMorico

I've seen this on my own site listing as well. I don't post many videos, but I was excited to see the thumbnails. I only use iframe embed code on my posts. Of course, Google has an $interest in getting users to your page... if it gets traffic I don't think we care if Google makes a few bucks in the process...

videoleadsonline

Wow! Zowwie! Amazing development, I'm speechless... Cat Got My Tongue! (humor there). I'm sure I'll be poking at this for a while Mark. Good job digging in, and now you know you can totally trust me right?... I did not let a peep out since you whispered the secret into my cute doggie ears!

But I'll be shouting this from the Rooftops very very soon - once I get all the details straight in my pea-brain head. Wow.. This is truly what us 'YouTube Posting Guys' have been waiting for. I wish there was a way to establish ownership and only the real owner would get the video Thumbnail/SERP listing, but I'll take what I can get, right!

WOW!!! Throw the Dog a Tasty Dog Bone (Oh... they just did!!!)

ThomasOwadenko

does that mean that if i build a website with text and i find good videos to embed for each post i get big chances to be over well index by curating YT in my blog post and add videos from there?

videoleadsonline

@ThomasOwadenko Yup... simply adding someone else's video (as an embed) on your site that is Relevant to your content - uses a good Title perhaps that matches what you are talking about - may get your site ranked with a Video thumbnail with this new development.

http://www.myeasydata.com/ dvdrepairtips

Ok, so let me get this straight... Google actually made it easier to deal with embedded videos on my sites and get them indexed? So, like my job just got easier? Can't think of anything to say really... world in turmoil... brain hurts... must lie down and rest.

videoleadsonline

@dvdrepairtips Feel free to REST... it is amazing isn't it?

aardvarkfilms

Wow - that's huge. Sitemaps are such a pain when you upload videos regularly (such as with a video blog) so if this keeps working I'll definitely use a YouTube embed over other sites.

Thanks so much for letting us know.

http://www.reelseo.com/ Mark Robertson

Yeah, I need to do a follow up to this post sometime but it's hard to explain what we're seeing. Essentially, it appears that YouTube embeds, though they appear indexed when doing site: search, dont seem to be treated the same way that other video results are and dont seem to surface organically with thumbnails, even for exact title match searches. I think that if video results are critical to you, it's best at this point to continue to publish videos on your site without YouTube.